Short story writer Linda Lewis (aka Catherine Howard) earns a living writing mainly short stories for magazines including The People’s Friend. She gives talks, runs workshops, teaches at summer schools and works as a tutor for the Writers Bureau.
See www.akacatherinehoward.weebly.com for more details.

Saturday, 29 June 2013

Another day older and deeper in debt, or so the song goes.
In my case, I don’t have debts but I’m definitely older.

Yesterday (my birthday) was good in parts. It was wonderful, truly
wonderful, to get cards from people I’ve never met. If you took the time and
trouble, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ve reached a really low point
in my life. All I’ve been able to think about is that I’m on my own. When my mother died, that was it, the end of
my family and all I could see was an empty aching void. Even though my
relationship with her was poisonous and painful; beyond wordsit was there. It gave me something, however
unhappy, to focus on. Now that’s gone and I guess you could say I’m looking for
something to fill the void.

There are so many things I could do – volunteer for example,
or get dogs of my own, but I’m scared of making the wrong choice. Most of all,
I know, deep down, that I still need to repair myself. I need to learn to like
me, to be able to spend money on things that aren’t really necessary (like a decent
holiday) so that I can recharge my severely depleted batteries. So I’m going back to Scarborough on Friday. It
worked last October, it can work again. Last time I went there, I spent far too
much time helping other people with their lives. This time, I have to focus on
me, however selfish that might sound.

On the Saturday, I’m finally getting to go The Lanterna restaurant.
I’d wanted to go there last timebut it
was closed for refurbishment. There will be 9 of us, me and my friend Val’s
family and friends. I’m looking forward to that, and getting some writing done.

I’m not going back to blogging every day. I might do a weekly catch up instead, at least
until I have something positive to say.

Now I’d better get downstairs. The builders are due back to
finish my kitchen. It’s been a right old saga – they started five days late
which scuppered all my plans. Louis, the Labrador, is here, and I really didn’t
want a dog staying when work was being done, but I couldn’t avoid it. Luckily the big stuff is done, but they are
really bad about closing gates etc, so I have to keep watch. I don’t want to
lose Louis.

Thanks again everyone for reading this and if you sent birthday
greetings, an even bigger thank you. I’m going to keep the cards and messages
and look at them when I feel down. Hopefully they will remind me that despite
how I feel right now, I’m NOT alone.

Wednesday, 12 June 2013

I am STILL taking a break. I just felt I needed to explain
why I’m having this break. Having signed off so abruptly, some people (thanks)
have been worried in case I planned on doing something stupid.

The fact is, I had been thinking about that. When I had the
NLP I had such high hopes. felt as though I was on the very brink of a breakthrough.
Then it was snatched away. Having been so close, it was hard to take another
setback and I fell into a dark despair. You see I knew something was getting in
the way, some mental block that wouldn’t let me be free, but I had no idea what
it was.

On Monday I went to see the NLP man again. He told me that
he’d made a mistake. That we should have continued that earlier session and the
reason why he stopped was because he’d been taken aback by my candour and the
emotions that were unleashed because basically I told him everything. He’d felt
it would be traumatic for me to go on when, in fact, I wanted to, I was ready.

So I went back. I was with him for four hours. The great
news is we found the block and dealt with it. I’ve read so many times that forgiveness
is the key. This has given me great difficulty as I have never been able to
even consider forgiving my parents. In the session, he asked me to forgive
them. I couldn’t. He told me to say the words even if I didn’t mean them. I
couldn’t. Honesty is incredibly important to me and I will NOT sacrifice that,
no matter what. So we were stuck, until he came up with a brilliant idea. Could
I imagine somebody who WOULD be able to forgive them? That was easy – Jesus. So
he asked me to imagine I was Jesus, and to forgive my parents. So I did.

I imagined I was Jesus. To some people this may seem like
blasphemy but not to me. I believe that we are all made of the same energy and
that God, or whatever name people choose, lives in every one of us, so when
Jesus forgave my parents, I did too.

This, for me, is huge. I’m praying that this is the block I’d
been struggling against and that now it’s gone, BUT it takes time. I want to be
sure before I start blogging again. The plan is to begin again on my birthday,
June 28th, as by then I will have a good idea how well it’s worked.
Now I’m going to ask a favour.

The key to my moving on is simple - I need to learn how to
love myself. It would be an enormous help if I could get lots of birthday cards
so that I can see them and think, yes, people do care. I’m all right. So, if
you have time and a stamp to spare, please send me a birthday card. If you send
it to my old address (98 Woodland Road, Leeds, LS15 7DW) it will be forwarded
as, until I’m ‘mended’ I’d rather not put my new address out on the web.

So now it’s au revoir, until the 28th of June
(also King Henry VIII’s birthday in case you were wondering where Catherine Howard
came from).

Saturday, 8 June 2013

I want to be able to encourage and entertain people, not depress
them so until I turn that corner, it’s good bye.

Recently I’ve had quitea few messages basically telling me to get on with it. I’d love to, believe
me. The biggest problem I have is that without my mother, my life has a huge
great gaping hole in it and I’ve no idea what to fill it with. Imagine if you
will that you wake up one morning to find that you have no siblings, no
children, or grandchildren, no parents, no lifelong friends, no
lover/husband/partner, no office or work colleagues. What difference would that
make to how you feel about things?

The annoying thing for me is that I focussed my entire life
on my parents, trying to get them to love/encourage/like me. I failed (please
don’t tell me that all mothers love their daughters because they don’t).

I’m sure that one day, soon, I will find whatever I need to
fill the gap in my life. Right now I’m doing everything I can to make that happen but, until
then, I’m better off keeping my thoughts to myself.

Thursday, 6 June 2013

The sun
is shining, I have money in the bank, my favourite dog o staying for a few days,
and guess, what? I feel deeply darkly miserable.

I CAN shift
my mood by cuddling the dog, or working in the garden, but the underlying
bleakness still lingers. It’s starting to get to me. I simply don’t know what I
want, or where to go to look for it. I know what I’d LIKE to be able to do –
loosen the chains and do what I like for as long as I want – but something keeps
stopping me. This is going to sound daft, because it is, but I keep thinking ‘what if I
die tonight? How will it look that all I’ve been doing lately is having fun?

I’ve been told,
over and over, that as soon as I start to enjoy life, which for me means
writing what I feel like writing, I will probably start earning money anyway. Although
I do believe that’s true, I still can’t slip that leash. And right now, it
feels like it’s starting to choke me. I didn’t even go to crosswords today.
People sometimes say call round, pop in for a cuppa, but they don’t know that
for me, that’s like climbing a mountain. I just can’t do it.

I have to
get a grip. Get the decorating done, whether I’m in the mood or not. The garage
at the flat is being repaired as I type so that means me ex’s stuff will soon
be leaving my garage and I will have all that wonderful space. What I need
right now is somebody to tell me what to do, somebody to say for goodness sake
woman, start enjoying life, and as there’s nobody ‘real’ to do that for me, I
have no choice but to say that to myself.

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

The doctor having told me there was nothing wrong with my
leg, it’s just deeply bruised, and that I should ignore it, that’s what I’ve
been trying to do. Still aches though.

I’m having trouble getting motivated. I stayed in bed late
this morning having been woken by his lordship, Louis the Labrador, who needed
letting out at 4 a.m, then insisted in being fed just after six.I speed read 206 Bones, a book that led to
the TV series Bones. It was OK, but rather easy to work out what had happened.
Now I’m wondering what to do today. I have plenty of painting and decorating to
do but I’m not in the mood, mainly due to my undamaged leg.

I think I might try and write something. John will be here
soon to take Louis out so I need to grab the chance. Now. I still have to write
a sonnet on the theme of lust for my poetry course. Yes, lust. It’s proving to
be something of a challenge. Why? That's for me to know and you to wonder about.

I had to turn off comments for a while as I was being besieged by anonymous posts. I've taken the restriction of again to see if the problem's sorted.

About Me

I write for a living, have done since 2003. I have lost count of how many stories I have sold to women's magazines, but it's at least six hundred.
My main markets are Woman's Weekly Take a Break's Fiction Feast and the People's Friend. I also give talks, run workshops and teach. My first book for writers was published in 2012 and is called THE WRITER'S TREASURY OF IDEAS. I have also published several books designed to help writers to improve their craft and find ideas.
At the moment, I live in Leeds.
I'm divorced and even though I'm in my (early) sixties, I still believe that one day, I will find true love.
Cue the violins!